Mr. McCormack, tell us about your mother. Three weeks after he caught Taxi vet Judd Hirsch playing the title role in an L.A. production of the play Freud's Last Session, Eric McCormack received a script for his TNT drama Perception ...

TV Guide

Mr. McCormack, tell us about your mother. Three weeks after he caught Taxi vet Judd Hirsch playing the title role in an L.A. production of the play Freud's Last Session, Eric McCormack received a script for his TNT drama Perception that finds his character, Pierce, hallucinating conversations with the famed psychoanalyst. McCormack, also a producer on the series, immediately reached out to Hirsch to play the role in the August 27 episode.

The timing for a Freudian visit couldn't be better: A few weeks earlier, on August 6, Pierce will have visions of his late mom, Margaret (JoBeth Williams). Mommy issues are the least of his concerns, though. After analyzing Pierce's work in a painting class, Freud comes to the schizophrenic professor's aid during a life-threatening ordeal in an asylum.

"It's very One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, with Pierce getting tortured in a basement," McCormack says. "Our set looks like Saw 2. My hands are all tied up, and Freud talks me through it."